In the strategy room of Willfrost Palace, Eleanor stood over a round table where a detailed map of the kingdom was spread. On the map, several red markers indicated conflict points along the Chinsonite border, a few others on the northern border with Balder, and a handful in small localities, representing minor internal conflicts she had already tasked with resolving.
"Your Majesty, the latest news from the front reports that they need more reinforcements and shorter supply lines; provisions are arriving late."
Eleanor took a pointer and moved a wooden piece at the border pass. "When should Sir Armand arrive? They departed two weeks ago. Shouldn't they be arriving, Lara?"
Lara Amdelias, sub-commander of the royal army, accompanied by the prime minister, Lord Cartan Veill, were assisting Eleanor in preparing strategies.
Lara moved the piece Eleanor had moved and placed it near the border post. "They should arrive in a couple of days at most. From the border post, they have instructions to send a pigeon as soon as the reinforcements are in sight."
"Very good," Eleanor added in a tense voice; even her face seemed harder than usual, as if bathed in a thin layer of glass.
"My Queen. The last pigeon not only brought requests for food, it also indicates that the Chinsonites are unleashed. This doesn't seem like the usual seasonal skirmish." Cartan added, his gaze fixed on the map.
Eleanor looked at Lara, expecting more information, but the young sub-commander lacked the experience. She brought a hand to her forehead and sighed, her soul escaping through every pore.
"Lara, please, stay alert..."
The sub-commander straightened up, nervous. "Yes, Your Majesty."
"What do we know about the skirmish developments in the last two months?" Eleanor asked, knowing the news wouldn't be good.
Lara shuffled some documents on the table, and they slipped, scattering across the floor. "Pardon me, Your Majesty." She bent down with trembling hands to pick up the documents, but they seemed to elude her grasp, as if they had a life of their own.
"Did Armand not have anyone more capable to take his place?" Cartan snapped disdainfully, not moving an inch to help.
"I am truly sorry, My Queen," Lara added, her voice broken and her face flushed with shame.
Cartan slammed his hand on the table, hurrying the sub-commander.
"Enough, Cartan! I am the only one who can hit the table." Eleanor's voice filled the room like a fiery breath. Her face, previously stone, was now the living expression of rage. She continued. "Pick up those papers at once." She stared at Cartan, embers in her eyes. "Don't think you have power in my court; here and to the last stone of the realm, only I may do as I please." She lowered her voice just a little, as if holding back a whip with a finger. "Punishing my subjects is my prerogative, not yours, Cartan Veill."
The prime minister swallowed hard, but even that was difficult. "Of course, My Queen, my apologies."
Lara stood up, holding the papers with difficulty, the clinking of her armor betraying her nervousness. "For about three months now, the skirmishes have intensified, My Queen, but in the last couple of months they have become much more frequent and have spread along the border, even to the nearby forts."
"That's an unexpected advance," Eleanor said, marking the other forts on the map. "Any idea why? It doesn't seem like they simply want to resume the annual confrontations, as Cartan suggests."
Lara looked at the prime minister, but he seemed oblivious to the discussion.
"The reports indicate..." She hesitated. "They indicate that Master Dyan's absence may have reached the ears of the Chinsonite strategists."
Eleanor lowered her gaze, resting both hands on the table.
"The last report states that a prisoner of war was interrogated and confessed." Lara took the report sheet to read it without making a mistake. "'Without the silver-haired mage, they are nothing; sooner or later, they will fall.'"
Without rising, Eleanor said with false calm, "Cartan, ensure that the delivery of provisions to the border forts is prioritized. Lara, send more reinforcements, recruit more mercenaries if necessary, but I want to see those wretches taught a lesson." Her voice sounded guttural at the end. "Did the Archmage send her people?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. She traveled herself with Armand and ten other mages, the reinforcements, and Glasca with the guild mercenaries."
"Good. As soon as news arrives, I want to know it, no matter the hour." The weight of her presence in the room grew even greater as her voice deepened. "Depart immediately, I wish to be alone."
Both Lara and Cartan hastened to leave. The fear of being swept away by a real storm pushed them more than obedience.
As soon as the salon door closed, a dry crash broke the silence. Something—a goblet, an inkwell, or perhaps a statue—had shattered against the wall in fury. Eleanor's rage, contained throughout the meeting, had just materialized.
As night fell, the Queen's private study was a silent sanctuary, far from the bustle of council meetings, the murmur of the corridors, and palace disputes. Barely illuminated by a couple of bronze candelabras, the air smelled of warm wax and dry ink. Eleanor was alone. Before her, a blank parchment.
The quill slipped between her fingers, turning over and over as if the movement could force words to be born. She had been writing to Dyan for weeks, letters she never sent or that she tore up without even reading them. But that night, something felt different. Something forced its way into her chest like a crack: not rage, but a silent weariness, as if her soul was, finally, beginning to ache instead of burn.
The quill touched the paper.
Dyan, damn you for leaving me with all these words without a mouth, without an ear, without forgiveness...
She crossed out the phrase. She sighed heavily. She put the quill aside and rubbed her temples.
She tried again.
Sometimes I hate you so much that...
A sharp knock at the door interrupted her. Not a polite one, but urgent.
"Your Majesty?" Lara's voice on the other side sounded too agitated to ignore. "News from the front, it's important."
Eleanor closed her eyes. A whisper escaped her throat, almost inaudible: "Of course, now..."
She stood up. She didn't look at the half-stained parchment. She didn't fold it or hide it. She left it there, like an unfinished confession. As always.
She opened the door with her chin held high, ready to be queen again.
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In Glavendell, the night was quiet, perhaps too quiet, as if all of nature held its breath while the mage immersed himself in his studies. What happened the previous night had opened new horizons for Dyan... and with them, new fears. The thrill of discovering an unexplored branch of magic mingled with uncertainty. That fleeting, yet profound, sense of emptiness that struck him for an instant felt as if someone had squeezed his soul. There was no pain, but what he felt was completely new, inexplicable... and therefore, unsettling.
During the day, he had continued his experiments, transporting small objects farther and farther, with increasingly fewer failures. Cadin was his tireless assistant, running through the house like an enchanted whirlwind. She had insisted that he transport her, but Dyan refused: he couldn't risk it that way. Still, he smiled at the memory. Having a child in the house was something he hadn't known he missed. Perhaps, unknowingly, a hidden desire for fatherhood had clung to his heart like moss to stone, imperceptible at first, until it covered it completely.
He settled into the chair. His stay in Glavendell, stripped of titles, robes, and duties, had left him exposed to desires he thought were buried. Old aspirations, forgotten longings, invaded him with each day of freedom.
As he reflected, the silver coin vibrated in his pocket. He straightened immediately. He pulled it out with a swift movement, and as he imbued it with energy, Finia's voice erupted in the room, like lightning splitting the silence:
"Massacre... help... overwhelmed... fear... Chinsonites..."
Dyan's heart began to pound against his chest like a war drum. He squeezed the coin tightly and responded instantly:
"Hold the coin. Focus on me."
He rose with determined steps. He scribbled a hasty message on a parchment, barely a tense, elongated scrawl:
"I'm leaving for a few days. Needed urgently on the western border. I will return. Don't worry about me."
There was no time for more. He closed his eyes and began to recite words he had never uttered. From his hand emerged silver glyphs, drawn with his index fingertip like filaments of liquid light, complex and ancient. In a blink, the mage disappeared.
The roar of battle filled his ears. Trumpets howled alarms, flaming arrows streaked across the sky like death-kites, and desperate shouts sliced the air like blades.
"Master, Master!"
The voice ripped him from his trance. He opened his eyes. There, huddled in a corner, was Finia. She clutched the coin to her chest, a wound crossed her forehead, and blood slid down her grimy cheek. She trembled. Her eyes, overflowing with tears, fixed on him.
Dyan urgently raised his hands and murmured a spell. A golden dome of protection rose around them both, shimmering like a bubble of sun. He ran to her, knelt, and embraced her.
"Quiet, little one... I'm here now."
Finia, hearing his voice and feeling his embrace, knew it was real. Her body recognized him immediately. He was her master, her father in all that mattered. She clung to him with all her might, her weeping becoming tremulous, but no longer from fear: from relief. Her dusty hands dug into Dyan's robe, as if she feared he might disappear.
She tried to speak, but no voice came out. Her dry throat only let out a weak sob.
Dyan caressed her face, tenderly wiping away the blood and tears. "Everything will be alright, Finia... I promise."
He looked at her carefully. She had no serious injuries, though the shock was monumental. He breathed a sigh of relief. He wrapped her in another embrace, this time longer, quieter, and knew clearly that as long as she lived, everything else could wait.
Finia looked up, and seeing his face, the face that had guided her since childhood, she felt her soul unravel.
"Thank you..." she whispered brokenly, with the voice of a child and the sorrow of a woman. "Thank you for coming..."
And she wept on his shoulder, but this time, shielded by his presence, the tears no longer burned her skin, but freed her soul.
Outside, the battle raged on. But inside the golden dome, for an instant, the whole world stopped.
Without fully letting go of her yet, Dyan spoke softly, his tone filled with tenderness and resolve. "Do you want to help me stop this?"
Finia nodded. She was no longer crying, but her body still trembled, shaken by the horrors she had endured and by those she would, inevitably, have to face again.
"Follow me," he said. "We must end this madness."
Fort Frontier was a living chaos. Warriors and mercenaries ran along the walls, archers screamed for more arrows while enemies raised ladders, trying to storm the fortress. Enemy arrows rained down like death.
Dyan, who knew that place like the back of his hand, advanced with firm steps towards the ramparts. As soon as the Willfrost soldiers saw him, a clamor of hope rose among the defenders. The Sage had returned.
"Master Dyan is here! The Sage has returned!"
They hurried across the parade ground. Finia followed closely, sometimes clutching the edge of his robe as if she didn't want to be there... and yet, knowing she had to be.
From the heights, archers tried to contain the Chinsonite advance. Defenders pushed ladders, shouted orders, but the enemy was relentless. Amidst the confusion, Dyan distinguished Sir Armand: wounded in the arm, his face distorted by something more than pain, an expression of genuine terror the mage had never seen on him.
Dyan turned to Finia. "I need a barrier. Do you have enough arcane power to sustain it?"
"Of course, Master. I will do whatever is necessary."
Dyan gave her a brief smile. There was still fire in her. He looked around for the mages who should have accompanied her, but found none. He didn't ask. It wasn't the time.
They headed towards the barbican, where Armand was attempting to organize a final line of defense. Arrows rained down, alight like furious comets.
"Start now, Finia. This position won't hold much longer."
The young woman's arcane words began to flow, firm and precise, like purposeful drops of dew. Her voice was clear, confident, vibrant. The enemy arrows did not cease, crossing the sky like condemned fireflies.
When they reached Armand, he barely had time to look at them before the sentry's cry echoed over the wall:
"Arrow rain! Everyone to cover!"
The soldiers ran for shelter; even Armand retreated. But Dyan didn't move. He remained standing next to Finia, completely trusting in her power.
And then it happened.
A thousand flaming arrows streaked across the sky like birds of fire. In the last instant, Finia raised both hands and whispered the final verse of the spell. A golden dome expanded from her like a luminous wave, covering the entire fort. The arrows crashed against the barrier, disintegrating into a shower of fire and sparks, like a storm of gold and ashes.
Dyan gave her a knowing look. Finia barely managed a smile: she was completely concentrated. That colossal magic demanded every ounce of her will.
The fort's warriors, paralyzed, gazed at the miracle. The young mage had saved them, and the wall now shone as if defended by the gods.
Dyan approached the edge of the wall. He could have warned the enemy, as in other campaigns. He could have given them the option to retreat. But this time, no. This time they had gone too far. Someone had to pay.
He raised a hand.
A single word sufficed.
The sky filled with black clouds, like a storm curtain. The enemies saw it. They recognized him.
"It's him! It's the sorcerer! Run!"
Panic spread like wildfire among the Chinsonites. Some stumbled, others pushed each other in their desperation to flee. But it was too late.
Dyan's voice echoed across the plain, firm, ancient, unanswerable.
And then, the lightning struck.
Hundreds of lightning bolts streaked across the valley like spears of judgment. Each one that touched the ground incinerated its target, reducing bodies to ashes in a single breath. The roar was deafening. In mere seconds, half of the enemy army was erased from the map, as if they had never been there.
The few who survived didn't look back. They ran until they collapsed, with a single thought in mind: that the Willfrost mage would not follow them. No one dared to look back. Because they knew, with certainty, that if they did, the Sage's fury would reach them.
The battle was over, but its consequences were just beginning.
Flames still flickered at some points in the fort, but silence began to settle, thick, over the corpses and the smoking stone. Finia's magic still glowed faintly in the protective dome, as if the spell refused to fully dissipate, refusing to release its last spark.
Dyan turned to her. Her clothes were soiled with soot and dried blood, her hair matted with sweat, but her eyes, Finia's eyes, remained firm, like those of a veteran. He gently touched her shoulder.
"Show me those who still live."
She nodded and led him through the fort. They walked among ruins and shattered bodies, crossing blackened courtyards and corridors where the echo of the battle had not yet faded.
In a side room, without doors, several mages lay on makeshift wooden stretchers. The stench of blood and ointments filled the air. There were open wounds, amputated limbs, faces covered with soaked rags. Dyan counted them in silence. Half of the magical detachment had died.
One of the survivors looked up. His face, scarred by a recent wound, transformed when he saw Dyan. It was Elian, a water conjurer who had accompanied him on the southern campaigns years ago.
"Master..." he murmured, his voice heavy with tears. "Forgive me... please... We failed the Archmage." He hit his thigh, his face contorted in pain. "I failed you. We shouldn't have split up... it was an ambush... I thought we could..."
Dyan knelt beside him, unable to speak a word. He didn't have the gift to heal those wounds, neither the physical nor those of the soul. He placed a hand on Elian's chest, right where his heart still beat with a torn strength.
"Hush, Elian," he whispered. "You're alive, and that's enough. It wasn't your fault. It was war."
Elian looked at him with tear-filled eyes and closed his eyelids, overcome by shame and sadness. Finia, who had already knelt beside another unconscious mage, said nothing. Her hands were already moving. She spent the next minute reciting words of healing, touching the wound with her fingertips, slowly closing the torn flesh, a whisper of light flowing from her hands.
Dyan watched her with silent admiration. With each wound healed, with each body saved from the brink of death, Finia's glow became fainter, more fragile. But she continued, one after another, without stopping. Not out of duty. Not for glory. She did it because she couldn't stop doing it.
She healed three warriors, then a squire with burns on his arms, then an archer who silently wept with an arrow still lodged in her thigh. Dyan helped her support their heads, calm the wounded, move the dead away. But he couldn't do more. Not with his hands. Not with his magic.
Finally, while trying to close a deep wound in the side of an unconscious woman, Finia faltered. Her spell disintegrated like sand in the wind, and her body gave way. She fell to her side, exhausted, trembling.
Dyan caught her before she hit the ground.
"That's enough," he said gently, wrapping part of his cloak around her. "You've done more than anyone could. You've saved everyone you could."
She didn't answer. She slept, breathing slowly, surrendered not only by the effort but by the pain of having survived. Dyan settled her beside a still-warm stone pillar and covered her with a blanket.
He stayed by her side, in silence, while the embers of battle died, one by one. He remained there, wiping the blood from her face, watching over her sleep, sheltering her from the cold, and when there was space for them, he carried her in his arms to an improvised bed. There, he fell asleep beside her.
The silence after the storm was thick, as if the earth itself held its breath.
Dyan slowly opened his eyes. The wooden ceiling of the improvised room in the fort curved above him like a protective shell. The light of dawn filtered through the cracks of the broken window, bathing the floor in golden rays. His entire body felt heavy as if magic itself had passed over him, but it didn't hurt. It was a deep, ancient weariness, as if every cell remembered what it had done.
He sat up with difficulty. In the other bed, Finia slept with her face turned to the wall, still dressed in her blood-stained and dusty robe. The healing magic had emptied her from within, he knew; he had seen her give every last drop of energy without counting the cost. Beside her, a tray with water and some bread indicated that someone had cared for them at some point during the early hours.
Dyan rose in silence, approached, and sat beside her. He observed her steady breathing. He stroked her hair, now tangled, and thought about how small she looked. That child who years ago asked him to teach her to levitate stones had now contained a rain of death.
"You'll wake soon," he whispered with a barely formed smile. "You've already done more than any archmage could have dreamed of."
Finia moaned slightly and turned towards him, her eyes half-open and her voice barely a thread: "Master?"
"I'm here, little one."
Finia sat up abruptly, as if the memory of the battle had jolted her back to wakefulness. "The wounded...? The survivors...?"
"Rest," he urged her firmly, taking her by the shoulders. "You did everything you could. The others are being tended to. Even Sir Armand is recovering. No one blames the girl who saved an entire fort with a single dome of light."
She tried to protest, but her eyes welled up without permission. "I didn't save everyone," she whispered.
"No. But you saved many. And me."
Finia nodded slowly. The weight of the dead still lay on her back, but it wasn't as unbearable with her master's warmth beside her.
Dyan pulled her towards him in a soft, protective embrace. They remained like that, enveloped in the pale light of dawn, saying nothing more. The world outside was still chaos, the war was not over, but in that room, for a few moments, peace had reached them.